Prosecutors say he victimized a 15-year-old girl in the process

Updated 2:47 pm, Wednesday, March 8, 2017

A 37-year-old man is charged with child pornography possession for
the images he collected even as he was investigated and convicted for
other sex crimes, prosecutors say.

A 37-year-old man is charged with child pornography possession for the images he collected even as he was investigated and convicted for other sex crimes, prosecutors say.

Photo: Vstock LLC/Getty Images/Tetra Images RF

Charges: Sex offender collected child porn while under investigation

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

A 37-year-old man is charged with child pornography possession for the images he collected even as he was investigated and convicted for other sex crimes, prosecutors say.

The registered sex offender from Federal Way also brought a 15-year-old girl into his activities, investigators write.

The Department of Homeland Security reports finding evidence of child pornography being uploaded by the man between May 2014 and August 2016. Agents also found pornographic images among his electronics when they served a search warrant on his home on Feb. 23.

Homeland Security investigators were tipped off to the images in October 2016 by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which indicated that child pornography was uploaded by the user of two separate email accounts, both connected to the defendant.

That tip led detectives to find eight sexually graphic media files.

Additionally, a Los Angeles-based Homeland Security investigator working undercover found a Los Angeles man exchanging child pornography online and also encouraging a 15-year-old Seattle-area girl to have sex with adult men and film their activity for him.

Some Oregon Residents Upset at Prospect of Pumping Their Own GasBuzz 60

Doug Baldwin playcallingBy Michael-Shawn Dugar, SeattlePI

Van Crashes Into Pedestrians Injuring SixAssociated Press

US military to accept transgender recruits after Trump drops appealEuronews

Snow on Christmas Eve, 2017Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Ice carving at WinterfestSeattle Post-Intelligencer

Amtrak derails near OlympiaGrant Hindsley / SeattlePI

Golden retriever meets Darth Vader and EwokSeattle Post-Intelligencer

Seattle's tunnel project, 2017 in reviewWSDOT

Hillary Clinton Book Signing Capitol HillSeattle Post-Intelligencer

In 2014, the Los Angeles-area man allegedly discussed with the girl a man she arranged to have sex with online, according to charging documents. He again reportedly requested that she record the sex.

In 2016, the girl allowed investigators to search her email account, where they found a photo of her having sex with an adult coming from the defendant's email address, reports say. She had also allegedly received at least two other images of child pornography from the defendant.

In January 2017, detectives asked the girl about her relationship with the Federal Way man. She reportedly said she responded to his Craigslist posting in 2014 and had sex with him about 10 times over the course of a month. The man allegedly picked her up from her high school and drove her to her house, where they had sex.

Related Stories

The defendant, in a separate case for which he was arrested after his contact with the 15-year-old, was convicted in June 2015 for two counts of immoral communication with a minor and one count of promoting prostitution. In that incident, he was caught in a law enforcement sting by responding to a Craigslist ad posted by an undercover detective posing as a 15-year-old girl, according to Seattle Police Department reports. The conviction required him to register as a sex offender.

Upon his November 2014 arrest -- nine months after his met the 15-year-old girl he had sex with -- Seattle police report the defendant said "it was a good thing he was caught because he believes that it was only a matter of time until he sexually victimized children."

He also "admitted that he had searched for child porn before but was not successful in locating it," according to the incident report in that case.

Federal agents and officers from the Seattle and Federal Way police departments served a search warrant on the man's house Feb. 23, finding additional child pornography, according to court records.

Agents arrested him that day and prosecutors charged him the next day with two counts of child pornography possession.